Bhubaneswar, Counting of votes for 21 Lok Sabha seats and 146 Assembly segments in Odisha began at 8 am on Thursday amid tight security, an official said.

As many as 6,700 officials have been engaged in 63 centres across the state for the exercise, he said.

Trends are expected to emerge after about an hour.

According to Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S Kumar, every counting hall has at least seven tables each for Assembly and Lok Sabha vote counting.

A micro observer has been appointed for every table to ensure free and fair counting of votes, he said.

It has been estimated that each constituency will require an average of 30 rounds of counting.

The ECI has granted additional 411 tables for Odisha as the state conducted simultaneous polling for Lok Sabha and Assembly seats, Kumar said.

“The counting of votes began at 8 am, starting with the postal ballots. The EVMs will be brought in after that.

The paper slips generated by the VVPATs will be counted in the end,” Kumar said.

The announcement of results is likely to be delayed as voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPATs) slips will have to be tallied with the EVMs in five booths of each Assembly constituency, as per the Supreme Court direction. he said.

Polling in Patkura assembly segment in Kendrapara district of Odisha has been postponed, first in the wake of the death of a BJD candidate and then due to cyclone Fani.